The Broken Calabash - A Short Sad Story

Once upon a time, I suffered from a terrible case of PAD, and bought a rack and 15 pipes. Most of those pipes were awesome, but a few needed some serious work done. Of the bunch, I was particularly found of getting this particular rusticated Calabash. I read in the ebay description that it had some minor damage but was repaired, so I figured it'd be fine.

When I received it, I tore into the box, skipped totally past the other pipes and reached for the "golden nugget". Upon pulling it out, I realized that it was not repaired to working condition. And I learned that it was not in fact, repaired, but it was super, or elmer's, glued. The stem was broken in half, as soon as I tried to remove the stem, the glue came undone again and two pieces of stem were all I had. As for the briar itself, this too had a crack in it. So, I set it aside and haven't given it any thought since then, because we haven't had the money to even be able to resale/ship the ones that we didn't want to keep.

It has sat for long enough for my overactive mind to have TOTALLY forgotten about it despite walking past it every day. Until last night, when my fiancÚ asked me what I thought we could do about it. Which got me to thinking, I have NO idea what to do about it. And so, here I am, sharing my short and sad story of the little Calabash who couldn't.

Any idea what my best route to take when my time and money align, brothers and sisters?

Well, I fear this is not a quality pipe and there's not much to be done without throwing more money then it's worth at it. If the crack in the sank isn't too bad it may smoke with a new stem fitted but, I would have to see it to make that judgement call. I have some stems and can cut the tenon to fit. If you'd like to send it to me I'll re-stem it for free and pay the shipping back. But, no promises as to the cracked shank. It may or may not be repairable esthetically. PM me if you decide.